SOTU must address public discontent

If our practice in the Bush administration is any guide, President Barack Obama and his speechwriters sat down in the Oval Office soon after Thanksgiving to map out the broad themes of his first State of the Union address. By the time the president left for his Christmas holiday, a detailed outline — possibly, even a first draft — accompanied him on Air Force One to Hawaii.

In the wake of the seismic events in Detroit and Boston that followed, whatever Obama’s speechwriters sent him has most likely been turned into mulch by the shredding truck that pulls up on West Executive Avenue each night. The attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day and the popular uprising in Massachusetts that propelled Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate have exposed the twin vulnerabilities of the Obama presidency — vulnerabilities Obama must address in his speech Wednesday.

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First, Obama faces growing discontent over his handling of terrorist detainees. Americans in large numbers believe that we should still be employing the enhanced interrogation techniques he has banned, and they oppose his plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, bring terrorists to the United States and try men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian courts. These concerns have been percolating for months, but they were crystallized for millions of Americans in a single moment, when, on orders from Attorney General Eric Holder, the FBI told the Christmas Day bomber: “You have the right to remain silent.”

The call to stop reading terrorists their Miranda rights became a rallying cry for Brown, whose chief strategist said, “From our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants.” It will become an even more potent issue in the 2010 midterm elections — and the 2012 presidential race — if Obama does not change course.

Second, the president faces growing discontent with his approach to health care and jobs. Americans have been taken aback by the unprecedented miasma of spending in Washington and that policy’s failure to produce the jobs Obama promised. By large numbers, Americans oppose Obama’s plans for a second stimulus spending bill — so much so that Obama has stopped calling it a stimulus bill.

And millions of our citizens, including large numbers of independents, see Obama’s health care plan as a Trojan horse for the socialization of the largest sector of the U.S. economy. The election of Brown sent a signal to Washington that even in Massachusetts — a state Obama carried by 24 points — Americans are opposed to the approach the president is taking in these areas.